Meadowlark Artistry
Kimberly Meadowlark is a one-woman show, a triple threat, and a vessel of possibility
When the COVID-19 pandemic upended her livelihood nearly a year ago, Baton Rouge entrepreneur Kimberly Meadowlark didn’t view her circumstances through the lens of loss, but rather the open-ended opportunity of possibility. “All of my normal streams of income and clientele were just vanishing,” said the artist-slash-photographer-slash-musician (being a triple threat is a mouthful), sipping her iced matcha at a local coffee shop early in the New Year. “But I just took it and I ran with it.” When nearly all of her wedding clients had to postpone the big day—normally the bread and butter of her eponymous small business, Meadowlark Artistry—Meadowlark adapted, challenging herself to create virtual content for other clients, expand her videography skills, and take on more commercial work through collaborations with a Denham Springs-based creative agency.
As a one woman show, spending less time out on shoots allowed her the bandwidth to slow down and set her intentions for the future. “I was thinking, ‘What do I want to do differently?’ And for me, I was just like ‘Let’s give music a shot.’” If there was ever a time to go for it, she had decided, it was now.
“I was thinking, ‘What do I want to do differently?’ And for me, I was just like ‘Let’s give music a shot.’”—Kimberly Meadowlark
Though Meadowlark has primarily kept her vocal talent offstage, songwriting has long been her personal catharsis. The singer’s Instagram is populated with videos of her in front of her keyboard, softly serenading her 13,000-plus followers with neon-backlit covers of slow burn sixties love ballads, folk country, contemporary pop—her influences fall across the board. Meadowlark’s voice is deep and full-bellied, lending the twenty-seven-year-old a dreamy and wistful sound far beyond her years, not unlike the old Hollywood glamour of Lana Del Rey, or the melancholy electropop that propelled Billie Eilish to teenage stardom (and a historic sweep of last year’s Grammy Awards).
Last summer, Meadowlark flew out to California to pursue work. On the plane ride back to the land below sea level, she began working on a new song, one that she was determined would see the light of day. A week later, she met with longtime friend and Los Angeles producer Hunter Plake, who is originally from Livingston, and he brought her into the studio to see what else she could do. This year, Meadowlark is poised to debut her own original music for the first time. She describes the upcoming material—three singles to be released over the next several months, with the first in March 2021—as a mix of lo-fi indie dream pop. With her colorful tattoo sleeves, ever-changing hair (a silvery-grey metallic now after a stint with lilac), and signature dark lip, Meadowlark looks the part.
Sharing her work is nothing new for the Denham Springs native, but painting in the privacy of her home and staging shoots behind the camera are a far cry from putting herself—her sound—out there, front and center stage. The anticipation of being so vulnerable in such a different, public way is a daunting prospect, but a thrilling one, too.
“I’m very confident in the quality of the product that I’m creating,” Meadowlark said. “A lot of people have been waiting for this and telling me to do this for so many years; it almost feels like their idea. It’s a weird feeling. I haven’t had this nervousness in a long time.”
She attributes the source of inspiration for her vibrant, abstract style to a near-preternatural ability known as synesthesia, a kind of cognitive crossing of wires in which one kind of stimulation evokes the sensation of another. Put more succinctly, Meadowlark can hear colors.
Since childhood, Meadowlark explained, she’s always felt things deeply; as an adult, she considers herself an empath. Art gives her an outlet to express herself when she feels the world is too much, too sharp. She attributes the source of inspiration for her vibrant, abstract style to a near-preternatural ability known as synesthesia, a kind of cognitive crossing of wires in which one kind of stimulation evokes the sensation of another. Put more succinctly, Meadowlark can hear colors. Whereas most people process sound auditorily, she experiences it both acoustically and visually; a crescendoing chorus can inspire a stroke of bold red here, a burst of violet there. In August of 2019, the artist gave a glimpse into the depths of her mind’s eye with an interactive art showcase at The Market at Circa 1857. Entitled Synesthesia, the month-long show was designed as an immersive event where people could experience the songs that inspired each work through accompanying headphone sets.
When she isn’t recording in the studio or editing footage post-production, Meadowlark has been preparing for an upcoming joint exhibition at Hammond Regional Arts Center. The art show, aptly titled Wild & Free, will have a five-week run later this spring featuring Meadowlark alongside fellow abstract artist April Hammock. Hunched over the gallery-wrapped canvas on her living room floor with bottles of paint and gold leaf spread haphazardly while her three-and-a-half-year-old son, Levi, finger paints his own printer paper masterpiece beside her—it’s a simple scene that embodies the realization of a dream she couldn’t have imagined would be within reach just a few short years ago. “There was a while where I didn’t even think art was going to be an option,” she said. “I didn’t think that it was going to be fruitful, but he just instilled this motivation in me.”
The pieces of this life she built for herself didn’t just fall into place, though. Steeped in the Baton Rouge arts scene, it took Meadowlark years of steadily gaining a following and building her portfolio one booking and commission at a time in order to become one of the region’s most sought after creatives today. Making the decision to pursue art and photography full time in 2016 while simultaneously juggling the demands of new motherhood with the pressure to provide was not an easy call to make, she remembers.
“It gave me this kind of identity crisis,” Meadowlark recalled. “Like okay, so what do I do now? Do I continue trying to do these things, or do I need to go get an office job? What is the right thing?”
“I love capturing every little moment that people forget, the ones they’re not even fully present for because they’re focusing on making sure everything is to the nines.” —Kimberly Meadowlark
She’s not second guessing herself anymore. If six years of specializing in wedding photography has taught her anything, it’s that she thrives in the midst of organized chaos—which shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the trajectory of Meadowlark’s career thus far has hinged upon her embrace of the unknown. “It’s definitely gotten to the point where people just trust me,” she said. “I love capturing every little moment that people forget, the ones they’re not even fully present for because they’re focusing on making sure everything is to the nines.”
As an artist, she knows the hustle always has more to teach her: how to work smarter instead of harder, to trust herself to keep taking risks and going all in, to respect the creative process and to remember that some projects can be kept for herself until she’s ready to share them with the world.
Looking back on what turned out to be her most emotionally demanding, yet creatively fulfilling—and financially successful—year yet (her pandemic pivoting paid off), Meadowlark is reluctant to give herself too much credit. As an artist, she knows the hustle always has more to teach her: how to work smarter instead of harder, to trust herself to keep taking risks and going all in, to respect the creative process and to remember that some projects can be kept for herself until she’s ready to share them with the world. The end result is making something she can be proud of; something lasting.
“I’m so satisfied with the work itself that I don’t need to broadcast it. I was just very quietly happy with what I was making, and that was a new thing for me,” she said. “It’s never been in that place for me to silently create. I really set everything up in 2020, and now it’s all coming to fruition.”